The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - Why Blue-Collar Christians Threaten “Big Eva” with Ben & Jeff from Backwoods Belief

00:00:00.000 Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin with

00:00:04.000 Right Response Ministries. In this episode, I've got two, not one, but two guests. I've got Jeff

00:00:09.160 Wright and I have his co-host, Ben. They're from the Backwoods Belief Podcast. These guys are doing

00:00:15.620 a podcast together for your everyman, your blue-collar country folk that big Eva elites

00:00:21.680 despise. They don't like you. If you're just your average blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth Christian 0.97

00:00:27.980 who has conservative biblical views, 1.00

00:00:29.920 you're one of those people who's stupid enough 1.00

00:00:32.080 to actually believe that God created the world 1.00

00:00:34.040 in six 24-hour literal days, that kind of person, 0.69

00:00:38.160 Big Eva doesn't like you. 1.00

00:00:39.880 I like you.

00:00:40.920 These guys like you.

00:00:42.220 And their podcast is fantastic.

00:00:43.880 And I've gotten to know them.

00:00:44.800 I've been listening to them.

00:00:45.640 They have a small following at this point.

00:00:48.680 They're new to podcasting.

00:00:50.640 But one of the things I wanna do

00:00:52.420 with Right Response Ministries

00:00:53.660 as God gives us favor and grows us

00:00:56.100 is I want to shine light on other guys

00:00:59.000 who are just as faithful, if not better than I am

00:01:01.660 and give them exposure.

00:01:04.600 These I think are two of the most up and coming guys.

00:01:08.320 What they're talking about is fantastic.

00:01:11.240 And so today we're going to be talking about Big Eva. 0.99

00:01:13.240 We're going to be talking about your blue collar Christians,

00:01:16.400 living life as a conservative Christian 0.99

00:01:19.260 in negative world and a world that's hostile 0.94

00:01:21.540 to a true biblical Christianity that hates you 0.99

00:01:24.420 and constantly wants to make you feel dumb, 1.00

00:01:26.980 constantly wants to make you feel like you're racist 1.00

00:01:29.360 or you're bad or you're the one who's hostile and mean

00:01:33.420 and this and that and the other.

00:01:34.740 Your tone is too harsh.

00:01:36.880 That's the conversation.

00:01:38.140 We named some names in this episode

00:01:39.760 and I think it'll be helpful.

00:01:41.760 So without further ado, let's go.

00:01:44.920 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:01:47.540 This is Theology Applied.

00:01:54.420 All right. Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm Pastor Joel Webin with

00:01:59.960 Right Response Ministries. We're glad that you're joining us today. I'm privileged to have

00:02:03.660 not one but two guests. They are co-hosts of a podcast that I personally listen to. And just

00:02:09.140 for the record, there's like maybe five podcasts that I listen to because a lot of them really 0.99

00:02:15.280 suck. There's 50,000 or 50 million podcasts these days, and everybody's got one. The way that email

00:02:23.100 was 20 years ago um you know hey i have an email well now that's that's the equivalent of having a

00:02:28.120 podcast uh but jeff wright um and also ben remind me your last name woodring woodring they're the

00:02:36.400 co-host of the backwoods podcast you can get it on spotify you can get it on itunes um and i'm

00:02:43.060 listening to it regularly regularly and they have some of the i think some of the best insights

00:02:47.820 currently with the evangelical world and just the world in general um and waking up pulling your head

00:02:52.920 out of the sand. So you need to check that out. Are you guys on any other platforms besides

00:02:56.900 podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple? No, we haven't made the leap to video. So it's just

00:03:03.780 backwoods belief in your podcast player. Backwoods belief. And I love the name because I think part

00:03:11.740 of what you guys are getting at is you're saying that it's not ivory tower belief. It's not David

00:03:19.020 french belief it's not uh elite belief it's the uh the christians that um that our leaders within

00:03:25.640 evangelicalism have spent the last decade uh making fun of and disparaging right

00:03:32.100 while also collecting checks off of i mean it's probably the most consistent donor base that big

00:03:37.900 eva has right the salt of the earth blue-collar people who are funding their you know their

00:03:43.720 vacations and and large budgets and large salaries um but it makes you know you fund them but they 1.00

00:03:51.800 they hate those people they hate evangelicals beth moore her infamous tweet you know a while

00:03:57.440 back as soon as trump won the primary in iowa she's like and she was you could tell she was 1.00

00:04:03.140 trying to not get in as much trouble as she's been in the past that was a toned down beth moore and 1.00

00:04:08.860 And it's still just reeking of, of superiority and, and just this looking down her nose at

00:04:16.320 how could evangelicals do this?

00:04:20.000 I mean, not the wrong kind of evangelical is a major rhetorical platform that they have

00:04:27.660 a desperation to stand on top of, you know, we're, we're the good kind.

00:04:31.220 We're not, we're not the wrong kind.

00:04:33.120 Yeah.

00:04:33.260 But, but the good time is what, like, it seems like the good kind is like, it's just them

00:04:38.460 The majority of evangelicals, and I'm not saying no evangelical liked Ron DeSantis.

00:04:43.640 I think Ron DeSantis has better character.

00:04:45.520 I trust Ron DeSantis to babysit my kids more than I would Trump.

00:04:48.760 You know, like Ron DeSantis could be a member of my church, you know, whereas I don't know

00:04:55.440 if Trump, I'd have a membership interview.

00:04:57.800 I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but I don't know if the dude's safe, but he will

00:05:01.840 definitely have my vote.

00:05:03.340 Of course he'll have my vote. 0.78

00:05:04.360 And if that makes me a hypocrite that I'm selling out on my, like, that's insane.

00:05:11.140 But, and if you're just, if that's all it was, but we know that these people are saying,

00:05:17.320 how could you vote for Trump?

00:05:18.580 They're not saying, how could you vote for Trump?

00:05:20.120 Because we're voting third party or we're going to write in DeSantis.

00:05:23.160 They're voting for Democrats.

00:05:24.480 They're registered Democrats.

00:05:25.940 Yeah.

00:05:27.340 That's insane.

00:05:28.040 Yeah.

00:05:28.200 One of the things I like about what we're doing with the Backwoods Belief podcast is

00:05:32.160 not only is it clear that our evangelical leaders have failed us now, but the next crop of good

00:05:38.380 leaders, if we're going to have them, are going to come from those kind of backwoods. The churches

00:05:43.600 that are disdained and disrespected now, the guys coming out of there who actually believe the Bible

00:05:48.360 are going to be the ones who are going to be leading us in the future, unless God does just

00:05:52.040 tear it all down and destroy everything. Well, that's what I was about to jump in and say. I

00:05:56.400 I think one good thing is that, you know, the Lord shakes what can be shaken to show what cannot.

00:06:02.340 Right. And Big Eva is shaking apart in front of our eyes.

00:06:07.260 And so praise the Lord for that. Praise the Lord that so many of them are having to run away from Twitter and hide because they can't sell their nonsense without just getting a flood of pushback. 0.59

00:06:16.660 Like, I mean, you know, for as bleak as it has been, I don't know, maybe somebody out there is going to tell me I'm blasphemous for saying this, but thank God that Elon Musk bought Twitter. 0.98

00:06:26.780 And now you can tell Phil Fisher just how stupid he is in real time and he can't get away from it. 0.98

00:06:32.800 Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm with you. 1.00

00:06:35.540 Elon Musk, I mean, like, I'm not a huge fan of cozying up to China, brain chips in the head, and the very real possibility he might be just controlled opposition.

00:06:47.180 But aside from all those things, I mean, there's just objectively, there's no denying in terms of major social media platforms, Twitter is the freest by far.

00:06:56.920 You can't post those things on Instagram or Facebook.

00:07:00.440 It's the only place where that set of people ever meet real life.

00:07:06.560 They live in such a thick, tightly controlled bubble.

00:07:09.900 The only time normalcy gets to penetrate it is when somebody has replied to a tweet.

00:07:14.840 I mentioned it already, but when a guy like Sam Albury is like, I'm getting off Twitter, praise God.

00:07:22.600 He's just taken away a microphone he had access to.

00:07:25.340 He's been profitably bullied out of a very major public venue.

00:07:29.740 Thank God for that.

00:07:31.780 And it's got to be speaking to his conscience.

00:07:35.040 Whatever's left of his conscience has to be saying, and they've got a point.

00:07:40.100 And the Lord can use that to bring him to repentance.

00:07:42.920 I mean, that's the ultimate goal.

00:07:44.220 I'll settle for, he put himself in the closet.

00:07:47.680 But what we ultimately want is for him to repent.

00:07:50.620 And I think that's possible.

00:07:52.720 Yeah, I agree.

00:07:54.480 Ben, were you going to say something?

00:07:57.360 I was, but I don't remember what I was going to say.

00:07:59.160 i'm sorry no it's good but i was gonna pick up on one thing that you said jeff you said uh

00:08:04.600 because it's kind of it caught me as ironic but you said uh i thank god for twitter because for

00:08:10.840 these people it's like their only uh it's their only introduction to real life and the reason

00:08:16.720 why i thought that was funny is because that's the opposite of of the saying that you hear all

00:08:20.680 the time twitter's not real life but what i noticed is that uh there seems to be a common

00:08:25.420 denominator between everybody who champions that mantra that twitter is not real life and it's the

00:08:30.500 people who aren't faring very well on twitter right and so like of course if you're getting

00:08:34.820 tons of pushback on twitter you don't want it to be real life and and to be fair i get tons of

00:08:39.060 people hate me i mean people hate you guys like so it's not like i don't get tons of pushback

00:08:43.920 on twitter um but i think i think my point is i think there's a balance between like twitter's

00:08:50.740 not real life there is truth to that statement it's not real life right your wife your kids

00:08:55.280 your local church uh so that that is true um but but if you if that's the only side that you lean

00:09:02.160 into then um then you it's like you're not going to hear any pushback you're not going to make any

00:09:09.220 changes you're not open to any criticism um because twitter it's it's not you know there

00:09:15.060 may be some bots on there but but there's real people saying no you we disagree we disagree with

00:09:21.540 you but i am worried that like beth more types and stuff that you know as they kind of you know

00:09:27.020 move away a lot of because i know some of these people you know i have you know friends and stuff

00:09:32.280 that they just don't like controversy they don't like confrontation and uh and so therefore they

00:09:37.460 don't like twitter right they're on they're on facebook you know they're on instagram they're

00:09:40.980 not on twitter and so a lot of unfortunately a lot of people who probably follow beth more and

00:09:46.540 actually do listen to her probably don't listen to her on twitter so i you know i think they

00:09:53.080 probably do get to escape some of it yeah one of the things i love about twitter is that more than

00:10:00.360 any other social media platform it is the like public square where ideas are being kind of hashed 1.00

00:10:05.780 out and sometimes in really stupid ridiculous ways where it's just idiotic arguments happening 0.99

00:10:11.480 but people are actually talking about ideas and arguing back and forth instead of the whole oh 1.00

00:10:16.420 let's just go grab coffee sometime,

00:10:18.020 which is really just a way of getting out of ever having the discussion.

00:10:22.180 Like you want to get that person in real life so that you can sit down and

00:10:25.660 kind of bully them through, uh, the, the,

00:10:29.720 the false, uh, virtue of niceness into not disagreeing with you.

00:10:34.580 That's a good point, Ben. Uh, Joel, uh,

00:10:38.700 I think probably all three of us probably value Twitter, uh, in this way.

00:10:42.760 You can have an honest fight. And, uh,

00:10:45.840 I think men, men like to have a fight and they can walk away from and say, well, I'm glad we got that settled. Right. But as you become more feminized, you have to do the kind of, well, let's get coffee. I just want to hear your heart, brother. You know, all this ridiculous emotive language.

00:11:03.760 And so Twitter is kind of the, in that way too,

00:11:06.500 it's kind of a boxing ring and you can get in and even with a friend,

00:11:09.420 like I've talked often about how I was wrong on same sex attraction.

00:11:13.220 I just thought that wasn't sinful.

00:11:15.360 And Jared Moore wrote less of the flesh, good book.

00:11:18.920 Everybody had to pick it up.

00:11:20.460 I mean,

00:11:20.580 he just hammered me on it and just stayed on me and wouldn't let me escape.

00:11:24.200 And he was right.

00:11:25.200 And eventually he won.

00:11:26.080 And we had, we had real fights about it.

00:11:28.760 So Twitter gives you a chance to do that.

00:11:30.860 Like I've never been in the same room as Ben.

00:11:32.860 but we can have a profitable fight on Twitter

00:11:35.140 and come away better men for it.

00:11:37.440 That's really good.

00:11:38.120 That's a good,

00:11:38.580 I appreciate you sharing a personal example

00:11:40.320 because sometimes that's one of the biggest criticisms

00:11:42.660 that I get.

00:11:43.280 I don't know if you guys get that,

00:11:44.440 but like today I saw on Twitter

00:11:46.740 at the time that we're recording this,

00:11:49.820 some account, I haven't blocked,

00:11:53.020 but he was posting,

00:11:55.120 because people were sharing it.

00:11:56.520 So I ended up seeing it,

00:11:57.720 but he was posting a picture,

00:12:00.340 old pictures of uh myself and eric khan and brian sauve i don't know if you guys saw that

00:12:06.500 i did see one of those pictures you saw yeah brian you should go back to that hairstyle man

00:12:11.200 it worked for you thanks i appreciate it yeah no my my old picture i was like this ain't this

00:12:16.040 ain't so bad i don't i don't feel that embarrassed brian sauve not not as much you know he looks

00:12:20.500 like a hippie he had the long hair going and uh but but here's the deal like so people do that

00:12:25.340 And it's, you know, old pictures or they'll clip out, you know, from one of your old sermons or something like that.

00:12:33.860 And for them, it's this big gotcha moment.

00:12:36.760 Like these guys are talking about biblical patriarchy, but they were soft five years ago, you know, or this.

00:12:44.660 And it's so funny that like people, they really do think that that is like the kryptonite, you know, TKO, you know, takedown.

00:12:52.680 and i'm like so you you proved that i didn't come out of the womb with the convictions that i hold

00:12:58.940 today like well he solved the mystery folks way to go sherlock you know that those let's put those

00:13:05.240 investigative skills to work you this you probably be you know high up at the fbi with that kind of

00:13:10.760 you know skill set but i but that's like yeah we're constantly so whether it's you with jared

00:13:16.700 more hashing out i'm i like people need to know that uh we're not sitting here saying um we believe

00:13:21.760 these things and we always have. No, we're saying we believe stupid things. I'll speak for myself. 0.99

00:13:27.960 I have believed stupid things. I started as, we were this rinky dink, as some might say, 1.00

00:13:34.560 rinky dink vineyard church. I was egalitarian. I mean, I had some weird views. And then I was 0.77

00:13:42.480 Acts 29. And then I didn't realize that wokeness was a bad thing until 2018 after Eric Mason wrote

00:13:50.000 his book that's when i pulled out of acts 29 um you know and and then it's funny so i'm like

00:13:55.620 so i'm like five years ago i was in acts 29 and and they were woke before eric mason wrote that

00:14:01.480 book but i i noticed it some but but not enough to my shame and then you know but then you'll

00:14:07.120 meet somebody like chase davis and it's like you know he's like i'm you know i got a acts 29 uh

00:14:13.240 three weeks ago you know and like i'm like wait a second you know like and but my point is just

00:14:18.460 It's like we're, none of us are saying that we have, they're not arguments for seniority.

00:14:24.960 They're not arguments where all of us are learning, but the key is what Jeff said, like

00:14:29.520 with Jeff Moore, it's like, I was wrong.

00:14:31.920 I changed.

00:14:33.100 This didn't, this wasn't 15 years ago, it was much more recent than that.

00:14:36.760 But the thing is, you said you were wrong.

00:14:38.820 And I know that's not what we talked about offline, but I think that's worth going into

00:14:42.180 for a moment because right now the opportunists, they're going to start flocking in because

00:14:49.080 we're winning. Christ is winning, but he's using vessels like us. People are listening.

00:14:56.380 The blue-collar evangelicals that Beth Moore despises are shifting away from these leftist

00:15:04.180 tactics and wokeism and feminism and these kinds of things. They're sick of it. And so my point is, 1.00

00:15:11.460 A lot of these guys are going to see which way the wind's going, and they're going to

00:15:16.260 come back.

00:15:16.920 And all of a sudden, and my point is there's a fine line between 11th hour servants who

00:15:22.980 still get a generous wage, and we should welcome them to the master's field to work

00:15:28.780 with us, to his vineyard.

00:15:30.520 But there's a difference between the 11th hour servant and the con man who he actually

00:15:37.160 didn't repent.

00:15:37.940 I don't care when you repent.

00:15:39.660 I care that you repent.

00:15:41.980 You know what I mean?

00:15:43.040 That's my concern.

00:15:44.180 But here's the funny thing.

00:15:45.640 God alone sees the heart.

00:15:46.620 Man looks at the outward appearance.

00:15:47.740 It doesn't matter when you repent.

00:15:49.060 It matters that you repent.

00:15:50.860 However, the longer you take to repent, the harder it is for me as a man who can't see

00:15:57.300 the heart, who's just looking at fruit externally.

00:15:59.900 It's harder for me because if you repent when there's a maximum benefit to switch teams,

00:16:07.780 it's harder for me to tell the genuine genuine nature of that repentance whereas if you repented

00:16:14.100 five years ago and you were a vast minority and you because i lost tons and tons of people from

00:16:21.160 my church i didn't gain anything you know and so that makes it that even then you know somebody

00:16:26.160 could be shifty you know but but at least for us externally looking in it's like okay that i i feel

00:16:31.520 like i can i can bet on that guy a little stronger is that fair what do you think yeah and i think

00:16:36.980 it goes back to what jesus said you know i send you out um and be as wise as serpents and as

00:16:43.980 innocent as doves so yeah we're supposed to you know trust that people repent and the lord does

00:16:49.700 do work in people's hearts but we also shouldn't be naive or foolish and just um especially when

00:16:56.360 with what's happening now where you have these guys who are coming out and critiquing wokeism

00:17:02.300 But they still want to hold on to all of the things that caused the issue.

00:17:07.800 I think of who was it who posted that thread basically defending Tim Keller against Tim Keller's followers and saying, well, Tim Keller was misunderstood.

00:17:17.820 Well, no, the truth is they got exactly what Tim Keller wanted them to get from him.

00:17:22.860 And so when I see somebody who's still defending the root, but saying that the fruit that came from that root is bad fruit, well, I think you still haven't quite got to where the actual issue was.

00:17:37.040 And something we've talked about before, there's a difference between repenting and course correction.

00:17:46.820 Right.

00:17:48.360 And a lot of what I'm seeing right now is course correction.

00:17:51.600 I mean, I know for myself, like back in 2015, 2014, I was like on the course to be becoming woke.

00:18:02.340 And then, you know, I read that hideous strength and saw myself in one of the main characters who was a bad guy.

00:18:09.520 And I was like, oh, my word, if I keep down this path, I'm going to become one of these people.

00:18:14.420 And it was just life changing for me.

00:18:16.460 And, you know, I had to take a step back and be like, I was wrong about all of these things that I was saying and believed.

00:18:21.080 I even went to some of my friends and told them, hey, I'm sorry for the way that I talked to you and treated you.

00:18:26.260 I was in the wrong about this.

00:18:27.720 And I think I need to see some of that happening in some of these cases that we're seeing these bigger evangelical figures course correcting when they really need to be turning around.

00:18:37.900 Yeah.

00:18:38.400 Hear, hear.

00:18:39.280 I mean, I'm thinking about this a lot.

00:18:41.180 I've been thinking about writing it.

00:18:43.220 I'm always ready to name names. 0.96

00:18:45.480 But the the spiritual danger to it is that you invite a guy who's going to turn into Denethor into your camp at the next time a problem breaks out. 0.98

00:18:57.880 So you've you know, a guy who, of course, corrects and you say, all right, you know what? 0.99

00:19:01.520 We're just going to come on in, man.

00:19:03.300 You know, all's forgotten, all forgiven.

00:19:05.980 If he hasn't repented, if he hasn't done the hard work of confessing and repenting, and listen, finding the freedom and the grace of release that confessing and repenting gives, the next time the betrayal is not going to be him outside the camp trying to betray.

00:19:24.440 It's going to be him inside the camp betraying and dragging everybody's morale down in the middle of the fight.

00:19:30.260 Right.

00:19:30.620 And so I don't know if anybody's talked as much about this on Twitter as me.

00:19:34.880 I feel sometimes like, you know, I'm kind of the the crow just constantly harping on it.

00:19:40.040 But if you take a guy like J.D. Greer, hey, God whispers about homosexuality.

00:19:44.220 We should use pronoun hospitality.

00:19:46.060 Then goes to the Gospel Coalition several months later and says, no, we shouldn't use pronouns.

00:19:50.400 Well, I have good friends that I respect say, hey, we should celebrate, you know, when he's saying the right thing, because you want to subsidize what you want to get more of.

00:19:57.200 And I said, no, because that just means he's worming his way back into whatever the group's becoming.

00:20:03.960 Wants to keep his hand on a steering wheel.

00:20:06.460 And he's going to, you know, apart from repenting.

00:20:11.360 Comprehensively, this guy is most likely going to just betray us all again. 0.76

00:20:16.040 So you have to kind of I mean, this sounds silly.

00:20:18.120 I know you guys know this and your listeners do, too.

00:20:20.360 But there's a reason the Bible positions repentance as a rock in the stream.

00:20:25.980 You have to do something with God's command to repent.

00:20:28.740 and if what you choose to do is not repent um that leaven is going to continue to spread

00:20:35.320 i really don't feel like we can take this seriously enough there's there's all kinds

00:20:40.340 of fellowship available but it's on the far side of repentance all right everybody's been asking

00:20:45.100 can i live stream your conference and the answer is a resounding no you will be there in person or

00:20:51.700 you will not be there at all i'm just kidding you actually can live stream the conference we're

00:20:56.260 excited to announce. We're making it available to anybody and everybody who wants to watch this

00:21:01.520 conference right as it's happening, which is March 1st and 2nd. That's a Friday and Saturday of 2024.

00:21:08.200 What conference am I even talking about? It's called Blueprints for Christendom 2.0. We've got

00:21:13.480 Pastor Douglas Wilson. We've got Dr. Joe Boot. We've got Brian Sauve. We've got Eric Kahn. And

00:21:18.820 then of course, yours truly, Joel Webb. And we've got seven primary sessions in the conference,

00:21:24.560 each one being probably 50 to 60 minute long sessions, lectures, sermons, whatever you want

00:21:30.680 to call them, and then two live panels, each being an hour and a half long. Now, one of the panels

00:21:35.620 is on biblical patriarchy. We're going to have Pastor Douglas Wilson available for that panel,

00:21:40.700 and we decided to get Eric Kahn, because Eric Kahn, biblical patriarchy, let's just be honest,

00:21:45.840 it's a sensitive topic, but Eric Kahn, I think, is known as one of the most nuanced, careful,

00:21:51.060 and sensitive individuals, especially on the Twitter street. So we're going to have him as

00:21:55.100 a part of that panel. It'll go really well. Then the second panel is Haunted Cosmos live show.

00:22:00.580 You've got Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett talking about the most unhinged things imaginable,

00:22:06.160 hopefully some things that are actually truthful. Now there will be some truthful things. You're

00:22:10.240 going to stick to scripture and when they speculate, and you know they will, they'll at

00:22:13.700 least let you know that it's speculation and they won't pass it off as though it's in the infallible

00:22:18.140 word of God. So live stream this conference. How do you do it? Go to patreon.com forward slash

00:22:24.140 right response ministries. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash right response

00:22:30.980 ministries. A lot of guys charge 50 bucks, 60 bucks, 80 bucks. We are asking that you would

00:22:36.440 simply partner with us for $10 a month. And let's be real. You could do it one month,

00:22:42.480 live stream all the content, and then cancel your subscription. And if you do, no harm,

00:22:46.840 no foul if you want to stick with us and support this ministry what god's doing through right

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00:22:56.320 right no i completely agree uh i you know i did a i did an interview um a while back and you'll

00:23:04.720 have to forgive me ben um i did not follow the rule but i did an interview uh with rosaria

00:23:10.840 of Butterfield. And it was wonderful. I mean, it was one of the better interviews. There's a lot

00:23:17.200 of conservative folks that are in, I'll just say it, I'll get in trouble, but I'll just say it.

00:23:26.840 There's a lot of female voices, podcasters, authors who are conservative, who are Christian,

00:23:33.880 but it does seem uncanny, almost like clockwork, like a German freight train. It just, you know, 0.67

00:23:40.060 give it three years and they're not conservative anymore you know and uh but i will say this

00:23:47.660 you know time time will tell but uh but rosario butterfield this is this is the reason i bring

00:23:53.560 her up is uh so a lot of guys they pivot so you guys said course correction i think of just you

00:23:59.580 know pivoting um and um but man what i appreciated about her especially on since you brought it up

00:24:07.960 that made me think about it, Jeff, the pronoun, you know, hospitality.

00:24:12.100 She was one of those people who said pronoun hospitality.

00:24:16.180 But she said this on the interview.

00:24:18.520 It was so helpful.

00:24:19.240 Everybody knows that she just, I'll just say it for anybody who doesn't know,

00:24:22.500 but she didn't just change her mind.

00:24:25.000 She profusely repented.

00:24:27.040 I mean, publicly, multiple times, going on almost to the point where it's like,

00:24:31.120 okay, like, goodness gracious, like, we forgive you, you know, Christ forgives you.

00:24:35.540 I mean, she went above and beyond in lamenting that this was a mistake.

00:24:41.620 Hey, did I mention this was wrong?

00:24:43.260 And I did it, and it was wrong.

00:24:44.840 But then she said in the interview, I just found it so refreshing.

00:24:47.960 She said, so I didn't know how many books she had.

00:24:52.440 I was talking to her about her most recent one, The Five Lies.

00:24:56.740 And I said, how many other books do you have?

00:24:58.520 And I didn't realize the last book she had written before that was The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

00:25:04.100 And she said, Joel, to be frank, she said, I write a book about once every five years, because that's about the timeline that the Lord seems to take for me to realize how many things I wrote that were wrong in the last book.

00:25:17.300 And so she was like, every five years, I write a book to confess and forgive and ask for forgiveness for my last book.

00:25:28.120 And I just, again, I was impressed by that.

00:25:33.200 And, you know, I affectionately have named her, titled her The Base Grandma from here on out, you know, because she's sweet, she's kind, but she's not taking prisoners.

00:25:44.960 But she was just like, yeah, I wrote that book, The Types of People, Gospel Coalition, she named them, Gospel Coalition, that liked that book.

00:25:53.320 Here I am five years later, I see that as an indictment, not as a compliment.

00:25:58.780 They liked my book.

00:26:00.240 I probably didn't write the best book.

00:26:01.860 I was too soft here.

00:26:02.940 I was too soft there.

00:26:05.100 Yeah, hospitality is a biblical thing.

00:26:08.860 But yeah, the gospel comes with a house key, but it also comes with a command to repent

00:26:14.640 of your sins and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:26:16.800 It was great.

00:26:17.360 It was a really good interview.

00:26:18.760 So anyways, my point is that to J.D. Greer's shame, here he is course correcting, pivoting,

00:26:28.940 saying something different.

00:26:29.900 I mean, he is holding a different position, holding it publicly.

00:26:32.460 And some guys will say, just give them a break, guys, let up.

00:26:35.880 They'll think, some guys will watch this and we'll be the Pharisees and their purview.

00:26:39.500 They'll say that.

00:26:41.420 But no, it matters.

00:26:43.300 It matters to say that you were wrong.

00:26:45.920 And one of the reasons why it matters is because we're not just to teach that which is true, 0.65

00:26:51.360 but we're also to model the Christian life.

00:26:53.700 Repentance is the mark of the Christian life.

00:26:57.280 And so if you can't ever model repentance, then, I mean, that's shepherds, 1 Peter 5, shepherds set an example.

00:27:04.840 So it's not just your teaching, but set an example for the flock.

00:27:07.740 When our church opened up, to my shame, we closed down for four weeks.

00:27:11.280 When we opened up the first half of my sermon, it was about 15, 20 minutes where I was just apologizing for closing the church.

00:27:20.060 The elders and I, we did collectively, but we, I was a part of that.

00:27:23.820 We closed the church, and then it wasn't just apologizing, but then I took them back through

00:27:28.040 Romans 13, the very text I used to close the church, and I showed them, because it wasn't

00:27:33.000 just, I'm sorry, but I needed to win their trust and say, I'm sorry, and you can trust

00:27:38.380 that I won't fall for that again.

00:27:40.600 I've changed.

00:27:41.740 Repentance has changed.

00:27:42.640 So I'm sorry I did it, and then asking forgiveness, would you please forgive me for doing it?

00:27:47.300 And then third, let me show you how the Lord has changed my doctrine, my theology, my understanding

00:27:55.940 exegetically of his word so that you can trust that if you follow me, if you want to leave,

00:28:01.340 I get it.

00:28:02.020 But if you'll be forgiving and be compassionate enough to continue to follow me, let me earn

00:28:07.880 back a little bit of your trust by showing you how I can rightly divide the word of truth

00:28:11.600 now.

00:28:12.100 And I went back through Romans 13 and said, this is the proper understanding of Romans

00:28:15.780 13.

00:28:16.140 And what I said in that little video that I sent you to explain to you why church is canceled when COVID first hit, that was crappy exegesis of Romans 13.

00:28:26.780 And if you don't do that, then yeah, man, I don't trust you.

00:28:31.420 You can't be on the team.

00:28:32.580 I don't even trust you to mix the Gatorade for the team, much less be the QB.

00:28:39.040 That's crazy. 0.96

00:28:40.660 See, that's the damnable part of that.

00:28:44.680 You can just see the PR managers who are in these guys' ears, you know, to come full circle back to you talking about those people pulling old videos and old snippets.

00:28:54.060 The reason they think they can own you with that is because, you know, we've all said it, being Big Eva means never having to say you were wrong.

00:29:01.900 Right.

00:29:02.020 And so if you could do that to some gospel coalition board member, well, he's going to be crushed, right?

00:29:08.720 Because his fragile sense of credibility that's built on this false idea that he's impeccable just melts. 0.55

00:29:16.360 But Christians can't build credibility on perfection. 0.87

00:29:20.740 Christ was perfect. 0.92

00:29:22.000 That's his credibility.

00:29:22.960 Ours is we repent in order to become more like him.

00:29:27.420 Right.

00:29:27.540 And so like you said, Joel, the guy who will not say, man, I blew that.

00:29:32.020 And here's what I've learned.

00:29:33.380 And I'm sorry.

00:29:34.140 Would you forgive me?

00:29:35.280 You know, you're the steps I've taken.

00:29:38.260 The guy who won't do that immediately starts bleeding credibility because everybody can tell when the emperor doesn't have clothes on.

00:29:44.900 Right.

00:29:45.300 But the guy who will say, actually, the word of God convicted me the way we should expect it.

00:29:50.240 You know, the Lord is sanctifying me the way he says he will.

00:29:53.600 Well, that person sounds like someone that is actually in the process of God's grace renewing them.

00:29:59.720 Yeah.

00:30:00.080 I mean, I guess that's what I would say. If I had any charity towards a big Eva person, I was like, guys, look, if you're trying desperately to hold on to credibility, there's a way to be credible. But, you know, it's going to involve hugging the cactus. 0.99

00:30:14.140 Well, that's the funny thing. It involves actually modeling this gospel centrality that you guys have talked about a million times. Like you actually would have to do that without it just being vague platitudes. It would have to be tangible, practical, right?

00:30:32.600 Like, cause, cause those, those folks will talk about, you know, uh, repentance and what

00:30:37.500 it looks like and it's deep and it hurts, you know, it hurts, you know, repentance breaks

00:30:42.260 you, but the Lord binds you up again and heals you on the third day.

00:30:45.480 He'll revive you.

00:30:46.460 You know, and, uh, but notice, but they'll never be specific.

00:30:50.680 Let me tell you about a time that the Lord broke me with a real failure, like a real

00:30:55.440 failure and not pre-conversion 40 years ago.

00:30:59.240 But two years ago, as I was a minister, I said something.

00:31:03.900 It was wrong.

00:31:04.640 I had to own it.

00:31:05.860 You don't hear those kinds of examples, and you don't see them modeling repentance.

00:31:11.100 And the sad thing about that, too, is that—and Jeff and I have talked about this before on Backwoods Belief—once you do that, it's so freeing.

00:31:20.700 There's nothing that anybody can hold over you anymore.

00:31:23.740 You've taken it to the Lord.

00:31:24.740 You've taken it to the people you've sinned against in the cases where that's appropriate.

00:31:29.700 But there's now no anvil hanging over your head anymore.

00:31:34.580 And I think that a lot of the problem we see in guys in leadership right now is that they have these anvils hanging over their head of sins they know they're guilty of, have never repented of.

00:31:45.220 They've pivoted away from them and moved on.

00:31:47.700 But that guilt's still hanging over them because they never have actually dealt with the sin.

00:31:51.900 Right.

00:31:52.000 And so there's just this level of guilt and terror that if anybody should ever find out that it happened, what could happen to my reputation?

00:32:00.920 And as Christians, like, that's just the wrong mindset to have.

00:32:03.800 The right mindset is, yeah, I sinned.

00:32:05.020 I was wrong.

00:32:05.760 I repented.

00:32:06.540 The Lord forgave me to move forward.

00:32:08.980 Right.

00:32:09.920 Amen.

00:32:10.120 It's probably Girardian atonement lust that's driving some of the animosity towards the blue-collar Christians, right? 0.90

00:32:17.160 that if they can convince themselves that, you know, I've got this secret sin I'm hiding over 0.85

00:32:23.380 here on my shoulder. I'm not going to deal with it. But that guy, he's a racist because he won't

00:32:28.320 repent of his whiteness. You can kind of scapegoat him. And that gives you the sense that like, 0.99

00:32:34.120 oh, my guilt is removed in some way because his guilt must be greater. I mean, I don't like pop

00:32:39.580 psychology, but Gerard has some good things to say. And I assume that's what's going on.

00:32:43.620 yeah that uh you know you try you try to make somebody worse than yourself so you don't feel

00:32:47.860 quite as bad about your unrepentance yep i think you're right yeah or you you see it with like the

00:32:53.720 mask wearing like people people had this level of guilt and so they sought out a way to make

00:32:59.040 themselves appear righteous right and in this case it was you know well i'm i'm not killing

00:33:03.900 grandma i'm wearing the mask i'm doing what they said to do so i have to be in the right i have

00:33:08.460 like i'm i'm the pure clean one here because i've i've obeyed the orders um and it's really just a

00:33:15.580 mask to cover up their the guilt that they're feeling for their sins right animals can to hide

00:33:21.180 their shame i mean that yep well wilson said something a long time ago it was like a halloween

00:33:29.580 message but he said uh that we we have this this noticeable i mean spike in in interest in horror

00:33:36.300 movies i mean there's like some of the highest grossing genre of you know film ever i mean even

00:33:41.860 in my neighborhood i feel like people like it's it's comparable just driving around the

00:33:46.940 neighborhood the decorations for halloween as the decorations for christmas which is crazy

00:33:50.680 and i've got you know a few different theories for that i think part of it halloween is um

00:33:55.320 it's a it's a holiday for uh for adult children um who are procrastinating you know they're

00:34:01.780 indefinite adolescence you know whereas christmas is a family holiday it's for uh grown-ups who got

00:34:07.340 married and had kids you know and so halloween is for 30 year olds who are sad you know to drink 0.94

00:34:12.840 wine and dress like a cat and be a hoe and and you know and then christmas is for traditional 0.90

00:34:18.340 christian families or at least christian adjacent kind of thing and i also think you know part of 0.88

00:34:22.640 it is the uh multiculturalism you know that there's just not we've got a lot of different

00:34:27.520 religions in our country we've got a lot of different cultures we've had loose borders and

00:34:31.780 and we just ship anybody no borders no borders yeah exactly yeah so like i mean my neighborhood

00:34:38.520 it's it's you know it's um it's a lot of people who are hindu a lot of people who are muslim a

00:34:43.520 lot you know so i think that's part of it but doug wilson's reason that i hadn't thought of but i

00:34:47.440 thought it was good he said it's a cheap way of um atoning so just like putting on the mask

00:34:52.520 on one hand it's hiding shame what you said jeff on the other uh what you said ben it's like it's

00:34:57.940 an easy way to atone for your guilt for your sin i'll i'll i'll you know do this penance you know

00:35:04.200 that's it's uncomfortable but it's not that uncomfortable it's not as uncomfortable as

00:35:08.160 actually repenting and and uh turning to the lordship of jesus christ and submitting to him

00:35:12.620 right like i mean by comparison wearing a mask ain't that bad you know i still get to be commander

00:35:17.080 of my own destiny and do you know do whatever i want i just got to put this dirty diaper on my

00:35:21.160 face you know when when i'm in public and you know and i get to make all those people who aren't

00:35:25.580 doing it look like the real sinners exactly you know i'm exactly them kicked out of grocery stores

00:35:30.900 or whatever right so so it's the hiding the shame it's also that doing the penance the atonement

00:35:35.060 and to that atonement piece doug was saying that horror movies part of the reason the fascination

00:35:39.500 is yeah the prolonged adolescence yeah this yeah that um but part of it also is uh you know that 0.69

00:35:44.780 you're guilty and that you deserve death the wages of sin is death you know you deserve hell

00:35:49.680 like house of a thousand corpses you know some some of the horror movies that are just i mean 0.99

00:35:53.680 it's like it's like a hellish torment terrible kind of thing like saw you know it's it's tortures

00:35:59.320 demented it's it's a depiction of hell um and you know you deserve hell but what you're able to do

00:36:05.180 in a horror movie is instead of repent of your sin and turn to christ as your substitute you're

00:36:08.760 able it's a substitute but not christ you're able to walk in and and it's you subject yourself

00:36:14.920 you're subjecting yourself to what you know is your fate what you know you deserve um but in

00:36:20.880 the last minute um that other character gets killed on the screen in your place and you get

00:36:25.760 to walk back out so two minutes of of discomfort and and you know oh you know but but at the end

00:36:33.880 of it you still get to keep your life and somebody else died for you you know i thought that was

00:36:38.540 decent insight so that's credible that's credible yep that reminds me of um the guy who

00:36:46.280 made the show the sopranos one of the reasons that that show ended the way it did which was

00:36:51.420 kind of on a cliffhanger um was because he brought the viewers along this ride of this

00:36:59.700 really immoral guy and they loved every minute of it and then he wasn't going to give them the

00:37:04.580 opportunity to see him get his just desserts at the end because all of the people watching the

00:37:09.980 show were with him in all of the evil he did and now they wanted to see him get justice and he was

00:37:15.460 like no i'm not going to let you do that because you've enjoyed all of the evil up to this point

00:37:19.480 so now you have to live with this question of whether he gets justice or not which i'm not

00:37:25.760 recommending anybody watch the sopranos but right i think that's an interesting point that he made

00:37:29.940 in that yep that's a good point one last thing that i was thinking in this whole theme of course

00:37:36.760 correction pivoting pr versus actual repentance and we're saying with repentance there's multiple

00:37:42.920 markers i mean obviously hours and thousands of pages have been written you know on the doctrine

00:37:49.320 of repentance um but but at least a couple little markers would be um i always always tell my

00:37:54.500 congregation and my pocket i say repentance should be both in word and deed um so so it's not just

00:38:00.000 indeed it's not i was doing this and now i'm doing that um but it's also a word and acknowledgement

00:38:06.360 i so so it's not just i was doing this now i'm doing that but um but with those that you're

00:38:11.980 responsible for and with those that you've that you've led astray with the those that the same

00:38:16.400 context of people that you send against with those same people um you don't just change your actions

00:38:22.640 but you admit with your words right so you don't just um you don't just all of a sudden pretend to

00:38:28.940 be you know the hero on on standing up you know for uh the church with covet um when when you

00:38:36.540 very clearly were not 15 minutes ago but never in word acknowledge that you know um you know i won't

00:38:44.520 name any names there but you know a lot of guys did that a lot of guys did that and so i've got

00:38:48.600 More than just one person in mind.

00:38:51.560 But you would have to, in Word, so you change, we're opening the church, right?

00:38:55.800 That's the change in action. 0.99

00:38:56.880 But in Word, you would also say, hey, you guys aren't stupid.

00:39:01.200 You might have noticed this is the exact opposite of what I was doing 15 minutes ago.

00:39:05.820 So I thought I would just go ahead and name the elephant in the room and say, that was

00:39:10.000 bad.

00:39:10.560 This is good.

00:39:11.900 I'm sorry.

00:39:13.040 Will you forgive me?

00:39:14.400 This, from the Word of God, is why that was bad, and this is why this is good.

00:39:18.100 will you trust me great now let's move on so i think repentance you know it's it's repentance 0.92

00:39:23.020 in in it's a change in deed and in word is an apology it's an acknowledgement um it's a request

00:39:30.100 a petition for forgiveness um and then it's also um because they're commanded to forgive you if you

00:39:35.740 ask for forgiveness you go to your brother and repent and and then lastly it's um i think you

00:39:41.340 know the forgiveness if you ask for forgiveness it's owed uh from other christians um even if

00:39:47.040 He sent against them 70 times, seven times, but, um, the trust isn't, uh, mandated.

00:39:52.580 So, so the trust I think is earned and you may not get it all back, but, but one great

00:39:56.800 first step to getting it back is show them why you changed your mind, how you as a person,

00:40:02.840 not just this one-off instance, but that you as a person have, have been radically changed

00:40:09.220 by the Lord Jesus Christ and further sanctified and conformed to his image.

00:40:12.980 you're a different man who it's not just i made a mistake and i realized it but christ has changed

00:40:18.440 me in such a way that i am far less likely to be the kind of man who would make that mistake

00:40:22.880 and therefore i'm more trustworthy than i've ever been before so if you trusted me before

00:40:27.820 you've got more reason not less to trust me now if you don't i don't blame you i'm not going to

00:40:34.420 guilt you for it but but if you're willing to i'd appreciate it i mean that like man you can

00:40:38.860 you can build an army of men who are willing to die for you with with rhetoric and leadership

00:40:44.020 like that but what i was going to say is just that the last thing guys who don't do that they

00:40:49.160 still have big followings and so i why why so we're saying all this is like because the people 0.82

00:40:55.920 aren't stupid like what i just said a second ago it's they're not they're not stupid they can see 0.51

00:40:59.200 that 180 degree about face you know 15 minutes ago i was saying pronoun hospitality now i'm not 1.00

00:41:05.420 Rosario Butterfield has the dignity to own it and write a whole book explaining why she was wrong

00:41:12.140 in owning it. J.D. Greer doesn't. It treats everyone like they're stupid. Still has tons

00:41:18.620 of people willing to follow him. I'll just say mine real quick. I think it's because the people

00:41:25.780 who follow J.D. Greer in his PR rather than repentance are, the people who follow unrepentant

00:41:32.040 leaders are unrepentant people. It's the same people who also, they themselves don't want to

00:41:36.340 admit that they were wrong about this and want to course correct and pretend as though. So the

00:41:42.620 people who are okay with the church turning on a dime, not four weeks in, but four months or a

00:41:48.560 year and a half on COVID without ever admitting that they might've gotten it wrong and trying

00:41:53.120 even to dismiss it by saying, well, you know, we actually have never changed our position. It's

00:41:58.680 just we did what was perfectly reasonable and acceptable given the time and the information

00:42:02.600 that we had available to us. But now that we have more information, so I haven't changed my position

00:42:06.820 at all. It's just the circumstances have changed. And it's like, who would follow that guy? I think

00:42:12.160 everybody who's just as cocky as he is. Maybe. What do you guys think? Are you a Christian 0.82

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00:42:59.620 I think there's an element of that.

00:43:02.060 I also think, especially in the evangelical world, we've been discipled for so long into

00:43:07.560 just believing that the guys on the platform are right and don't get it wrong.

00:43:12.320 And so, you know, I'm just a country bumpkin churchgoer, but J.D. Greer gets all of this

00:43:17.760 airtime.

00:43:18.520 He's got, you know, all of these videos.

00:43:20.120 He's the guy I'm supposed to trust and believe in.

00:43:23.860 And if he says it, well, you know, I must, he must be right in this particular moment.

00:43:29.760 And so it's not, it's not naive.

00:43:32.340 I don't think it's just, we've been trained for so long to think that these guys are the

00:43:38.700 guys we ought to follow because of, you know, whether it's, yeah, whether it's because of,

00:43:48.460 Well, the Southern Baptists remained conservative despite all of the issues they had during the conservative resurgence.

00:43:56.380 They remained faithful, and so they're faithful now.

00:43:59.880 But there has to come a point where you recognize that actually the guys in leadership aren't telling me the truth.

00:44:06.040 And so I think probably there are some of the guys like you're describing, Joel, who are also in the same boat and don't want to have to deal with their own sins.

00:44:13.400 But I do think – I want to say that there's a place for just kind of the – I don't want to use the word naive, but just the Christian who isn't thinking deeply about this stuff and is just trusting that the guys on the platform aren't going to steer them wrong.

00:44:28.800 And eventually, you have to get to the place where there's the straw that breaks the camel's back, and they're like, I can't follow this person anymore.

00:44:36.020 So you're getting at the driving energy of the last four or five years of my life.

00:44:43.400 That person you're talking about there is actually practicing a virtue.

00:44:46.960 He's believing the best. 0.95

00:44:50.380 And the Greers, the wolves use that against him to destroy him, right?

00:44:57.360 It's Ezekiel.

00:44:58.300 The shepherds grow fat on my sheep. 0.92

00:45:01.920 And so the thing that I get that DNA level that makes me hostile immediately is when I see a guy praying on a better Christian.

00:45:11.320 because the Christian is just believing the best.

00:45:16.100 And so, you know, since we're piling theories, Joel, mine is just adjacent to yours.

00:45:21.520 Evangelicals were groomed into thinking that immediate numerical measurables

00:45:27.400 are the chief indicator of God's blessing. 1.00

00:45:31.940 You're right.

00:45:32.720 And the dirty secret is that can be had out of a box.

00:45:38.000 You know, people talk, you've experienced this, Joel.

00:45:41.320 How's your church doing? That's coded language for how many people do you have? And do you have more people coming than I do? Right. You meet another pastor or whatever. You've been to conferences where that happens. My answer to that is it's not it's not the great awakening, but I'm thankful for what God's doing. Right.

00:45:56.240 Um, I could give away iPads at meetings. I could do what JD Greer does and get up and tell a world

00:46:06.560 and, and worldly, either half converted or false converted Christians. What you want is actually 0.92

00:46:14.760 what God wants you to have. Right. So JD exists on a continuum with Creflo Dollar. This is just

00:46:21.400 a little bit more dialed down and sold with better dental work, you can have numerical

00:46:31.180 success pretty easy.

00:46:32.500 In fact, the North American Mission Board basically plants mega churches because this

00:46:37.340 stuff can come out of a box.

00:46:39.340 But because we're in this feedback loop of, oh, measurables indicate God's blessing.

00:46:44.520 Oh, look, there's all these measurables.

00:46:46.480 Oh, that indicates God's blessing.

00:46:47.840 The guy who gets stuck at the middle of it through really manipulative PR tactics, well, he gets to have all this credibility.

00:46:57.680 And that's actually why I think they're so – I think they know it's fragile.

00:47:01.400 And that's why I think they're so reluctant to say they're wrong because they know this is kind of a house of cards.

00:47:07.640 And if the wrong thing tips it, oh, my gosh, it just fell apart.

00:47:11.140 You know, if I answer the wrong person, they kind of lay me out.

00:47:14.700 Right.

00:47:15.500 I'm going to, you know, my credibility is gone and I can't get it back by bringing in the latest Tim Tebow or whatever to say, oh, we had 4,000 people at our last men's conference, you know.

00:47:26.200 Right.

00:47:27.120 Right.

00:47:27.660 I think at a practical level, aside from just what's moral and right and what, you know, what we should be striving for to accomplish.

00:47:34.700 I think it's inevitable just in the providence of God that I don't think we're going to,

00:47:40.080 I think megachurches are probably going to be a thing of the past.

00:47:43.540 I don't think it's sustainable, like what you're saying, fragile, a house of cards,

00:47:47.580 but especially for a number of reasons.

00:47:49.780 But one of those reasons, just a practical reason, is it does feel a bit like a Reformation 2.0.

00:47:58.120 that you know 500 years like god tends to to sync up in his providence theological reformation with

00:48:04.700 you know technological innovation right you know so you got luther and you got the gutenberg printing

00:48:10.700 press sure right and you know and now i'm not saying we've necessary i'm i'm certainly not

00:48:15.920 a luther um you know but but maybe a bunch of many luthers you know maybe maybe a little army of

00:48:21.860 luther minions you know i mean i just don't know if we currently have people as smart as people 0.95

00:48:27.540 from back in the day is what i'm realizing i like i literally just think we're dumber like across

00:48:32.360 the board our smartest are are like are like kind of lightweights compared to like some average dudes

00:48:39.140 from from four or five hundred years ago but um but all that being said so we may not have the

00:48:44.060 luther but i think we do have the gutenberg printing press equivalency with uh thanks to

00:48:48.980 al gore you know he invented the internet and you know but but with the internet and then and then

00:48:54.500 further, getting more narrowed in social media and then now video and podcast. And, and, and then

00:48:59.960 now we've got, you know, artificial intelligence, you know, narrow AI. I don't think I personally

00:49:05.180 of the perspective that, uh, transcendence, you know, a sentient, um, AI is, is, uh, something

00:49:12.040 that, that God providentially just won't even allow. I don't think humans can do it. Uh, so

00:49:16.580 I'm not afraid of narrow AI. I think it like any tool, you know, a tool, a hammer can, you can beat

00:49:20.860 somebody crush their skull in, you know, or you can build a house. And so I, you know, so I think

00:49:25.660 AI can, could be a gift. I have no doubt it'll be an opportunity for more corruption. And so,

00:49:30.460 but my point is, I think we're just going to get splintered. And, you know, like, like, I just

00:49:35.000 think like every pastor is going to have a podcast, right? It's like back in the day, it's like,

00:49:40.380 can you afford to do what Sproul's doing? Did like, and I'm not saying Sproul, Sproul was worth

00:49:44.600 his salt, you know, like, so I'm not saying he wasn't worth it or he didn't deserve it, but

00:49:48.580 But unless you get that million-dollar donation to buy property in the Ligonier Valley and set up a TV studio, then you're not—but that's not the case now.

00:50:02.480 Every single pastor of a church of 30 people can have a podcast.

00:50:06.460 Like Andrew Isker, there are thousands of people who know Andrew Isker.

00:50:09.380 His church is only 30, 40 people, but it's because it's his hometown.

00:50:14.260 He grew up there his whole life.

00:50:15.420 He went to that church as a boy, and so he's there, and he loves it.

00:50:21.020 He's not there because he can't get a bigger gig.

00:50:24.820 He's there because he's got family, he's got friends, he loves people.

00:50:29.800 But my point is, 30 people in his church, used to, that's the way a pastor, if he ever

00:50:35.060 had a shot at notoriety, it was by getting a big church.

00:50:38.820 That's the only way, right?

00:50:40.260 But now it's like, you can pastor 30 people, and then Isker can be putting up numbers, beating Russell Moore on the Amazon bestseller list with a book.

00:50:50.560 That's crazy.

00:50:51.760 And then doing a podcast, you know, with some other pastor, just like the two of you, never met in person, but genuine friends, like-minded, met on Twitter, you know, or some, you know, 4chan.

00:51:04.360 I'm just kidding.

00:51:05.380 You know, met somewhere, you know.

00:51:07.100 That's funny.

00:51:07.620 It's not true, but it's funny.

00:51:08.860 And the back alleys of the internet. But my point is just, as that happens is every pastor has a

00:51:14.740 podcast. Every guy has a voice. Um, I, I think it's, it's going to create confusion. So I'm not

00:51:19.360 saying, I'm not going to sit here in, in rose color and say, it's all going to be positive.

00:51:23.140 There will be some big negatives. Uh, but one of the positives, right? So like Luther, they, you

00:51:28.200 know, they, the Catholics, you know, they said like, if you do this, you're going to open up 1.00

00:51:32.500 the floodgate of iniquity. You're going to have a 3000 denominations. And, uh, Luther didn't 0.97

00:51:37.940 disagree with him. He just said, so be it. Better to have a haystack with one needle of truth. And

00:51:43.020 I think we'll have multiple needles in God's mercy than to have a nice put together bushel of hay

00:51:48.180 where there's no needle at all. Right. That was Rome, you know, and, and likewise with big Eva

00:51:52.960 better, better to have small Eva backwoods belief. Um, and some of the backwoods, uh, churches will

00:51:59.660 be, you know, they'll be handling snakes. Yeah. They'll be handling snakes and, and other ones

00:52:04.700 will be saying send money to israel you know if you bless israel you'll be blessed by god and 0.73

00:52:09.580 they're dispensationalists and and hoping for the third temple and and that you know and that's

00:52:14.080 going to happen um but but there will also i have a i have far more hope with with with uh backwoods

00:52:22.400 belief that some of those guys will be faithful not just some but i think a lot a lot than i do

00:52:27.920 with the the clean cut put together uh wizard of oz behind the curtain big eva machine where only

00:52:35.160 12 guys ever see the public light of day ever get the notoriety ever get the platform and it's

00:52:41.160 controlled and it's airtight and uh you can't you can't squeeze the truth in even if you try there's

00:52:47.720 not room for one needle um so i i think um what you're saying actually especially the proliferation

00:52:54.620 of social media and podcasts and things like that is a big reason why guys like J.D. Greer,

00:53:02.620 who had all of these followers and then, you know, turn on about face and still kept their

00:53:07.620 followers. I don't think that's going to happen as much as it used to. And I think it's obvious

00:53:11.980 that's not because of the proliferation of media where, you know, you don't need to go to J.D.

00:53:17.380 Greer to hear the big, you know, video production and all of these really nice put together clips

00:53:23.660 of him teaching for 10 minutes on some topic on the internet. You can get that from literally

00:53:28.660 anybody, even guys who are unqualified to be talking about it at all, have huge followings

00:53:33.740 on YouTube. And so now when a guy like JD Greer does an about face like that, you've got random

00:53:39.860 Twitter anons who are like, Hey, you said this yesterday and now you're saying this today,

00:53:44.500 what's going on? And they can't handle that kind of criticism. They can't handle the openness of

00:53:49.660 what social media provides and so while yeah it does have a lot of negative consequences it has

00:53:55.580 that one positive that the gatekeepers can't keep the gate anymore right that's what it is

00:54:01.660 joe you got to the premise of our podcast i mean you you said it as well as we did on the original

00:54:06.640 of the first so we think christianity thrives on the margins um and we think that's where

00:54:12.540 god historically has done a ton of great work and where it looks like he'll do a lot of great work

00:54:17.640 now um so you i mean we're with you we think that that's we want to be there to encourage those guys

00:54:23.340 and say you're not crazy you're not the problem like you've been told uh you're our hope you're

00:54:29.580 a future just lean into it you know demand to be normal and uh we want to encourage you in that

00:54:36.460 line for every guy that's been called a racist a million times right we love you christ loves you

00:54:43.620 Yeah, that's the person.

00:54:44.600 I want to tell that person, God loves you.

00:54:47.120 Those people are predators.

00:54:48.680 You're not weird for thinking they're weird. 0.82

00:54:51.040 Keep on, man.

00:54:53.120 What were you going to say, Jeff?

00:54:54.800 Just that I need to qualify a few things there, which is rare enough for me.

00:55:02.100 Healthy things grow.

00:55:03.940 And so I'm not saying numerical growth is a sign of ill health.

00:55:10.500 Right.

00:55:10.820 What I'm trying to cut into is, you know, Jonathan Edwards versus Charles Finney.

00:55:15.960 Have you ever read Ian Murray's book, Revival versus Revivalism?

00:55:19.740 Yep.

00:55:20.760 You know, some of this stuff can be manufactured, and yet we treat it as if it's ironclad credibility.

00:55:27.260 And that it exists as a counterfeit actually suggests and indicates there's a real authentic version of it.

00:55:35.160 Right.

00:55:35.680 And so the qualifier I want to add is that God blesses some people with greater reach and platforms and whatnot.

00:55:44.100 That's not inherently wrong.

00:55:46.220 It's the self-validating, manufactured big numbers that evangelicals are really going to have to learn to take a critical eye towards.

00:55:55.300 Right.

00:55:55.460 What are you growing with?

00:55:56.460 Because you're right.

00:55:56.900 Healthy things grow.

00:55:58.300 So do tumors.

00:56:00.040 Yeah.

00:56:01.000 That's true.

00:56:01.500 So healthy things do grow, but growth in and of itself is not a guarantee of health.

00:56:08.260 It can be a sign of health, but you can grow with trash.

00:56:13.960 And if you're growing with unconverted people, and then six months later, 1.00

00:56:19.140 because that's one of the signature moves also of Big Eva, 0.83

00:56:22.660 is they'd always brag about how many non-Christians they have in their church.

00:56:25.460 The problem is, six months later, six years later, 0.93

00:56:28.180 um they still have a ton of non-christians in the church and they're the same people 0.97

00:56:33.220 so they've been able to sit and they're running the church and they're running the church but

00:56:37.280 they've been able to sit under the preaching of god's word allegedly for six years um

00:56:43.420 and to in my assessment you guys correct me if i'm wrong but i like even outside of preaching

00:56:48.560 in the church just in relationship you know i've had people but you know pastoral pastoral council

00:56:52.880 one of the you know common questions faqs over the years is how do i maintain this friendship

00:56:57.700 you know with this unbeliever you know and i'm trying to minister to them and i always encourage

00:57:01.780 i don't encourage them to be a jerk but but i do tell them in a general sense um the person needs

00:57:07.700 to uh the person is going to get saved or they're going to back off they may not utterly reject you 0.96

00:57:13.740 and say i'll never speak to you again but the relationship if this is a close friend with an

00:57:18.480 unbeliever and you're now saved you're telling me you're a new creation in christ jesus you have a

00:57:23.120 different orientation of desires and goals and ambitions and all like you have a whole nother

00:57:29.220 worldview a whole nother presupposition um then then the relationship they're either going god's

00:57:34.580 going to save them too or or the relationship is going to start to drift further and further apart

00:57:40.000 but if you come back to me in a year and the person's not saved and you're just as close

00:57:45.540 as you ever were then uh you're messing up you're doing something wrong you're an undercover

00:57:52.040 christian you're ashamed of you're being ashamed of christ you're holding something back you're

00:57:55.720 being a cat there's something wrong like it's either like people say oh jesus was the friend 0.98

00:57:59.860 of sinners yeah repentant ones repentant well he was a friend of prostitutes yeah the ones who are

00:58:06.240 who are uh washing his feet and drying them with their hair and washing them with his tears

00:58:11.680 well he was a friend of tax collectors yeah the ones who said they would give four times back

00:58:16.040 what they defrauded you know what i mean that jesus there is not one example in the gospel

00:58:20.660 narratives of Jesus having an ongoing long-term friendship with an unrepentant person. Every

00:58:26.560 single friendship he has is somebody who almost immediately is saying, I'm going to follow Jesus.

00:58:33.600 I'm changing. I'm leaving something behind. I'm making a change. I'm not a perfect man,

00:58:38.840 but we're making a change. And anybody who didn't want, the best example we'd have of a long-term

00:58:43.720 relationship with someone who never made a change, a serious change, would be Judas. And I feel like,

00:58:49.280 I mean, I feel like I have, you know, it's safe for me to say that the son of perdition

00:58:54.040 was a unique position that Jesus sovereignly knew about and allowed, you know, to build

00:59:00.680 a whole doctrine over Judas.

00:59:03.640 And well, I'm just, my ministry is to Judas.

00:59:06.060 What, I don't, that's weird.

00:59:09.420 You guys, you got any thoughts on that?

00:59:10.800 We can land the plane here in a moment, but I feel like this has been good.

00:59:13.300 There's other things that we talked about going into.

00:59:15.100 We'll have to save that for another time because I feel like this just became its own episode.

00:59:18.060 But we'll have to do, we'll have to do the AI episode because we have some thoughts on that.

00:59:24.900 Okay. Demons. The absolute potential. I've got those thoughts too.

00:59:32.060 But what I was going to say is for somebody who might be the person who is, you know, has followed J.D. Greer and is now, you know, following him in his course correction.

00:59:44.500 And one of the ways you can sort of figure out that that course correcting is happening, and it's not just a sincere change of heart, is when you see someone like that.

00:59:54.300 I just saw a picture recently.

00:59:56.640 It was Brent Leatherwood, and he's hanging out with this guy who's just been criticized for all of the things he's doing wrong.

01:00:03.680 And Brent Leatherwood comes along and takes a picture with him and telling everybody about how good of friends he is with him.

01:00:09.700 And it's like, this guy's okay.

01:00:10.720 As soon as you see that wagon circling starting to happen, that's a great sign that there's something, something is up and you need to have your ears open to maybe I'm not being told the whole truth here.

01:00:23.440 Right.

01:00:23.700 Good point.

01:00:24.660 All right.

01:00:24.860 Let's, we got to plug this again, backwards belief, because I want people to check it out.

01:00:29.660 So the objective room, I believe is the title of your most recent episode.

01:00:33.960 Is that right?

01:00:34.540 Yeah.

01:00:34.760 Life in the objective room to reference to that hideous strength.

01:00:38.360 I listened to that three days ago, the whole episode. Fantastic. And honestly, Jeff, your Southern drawl is just chef's kiss. It is enjoyable to listen to. But that was a great episode. What are some of your top five favorite episodes that people want to check it out that they should listen to?

01:00:56.140 One that your listeners will probably particularly enjoy and is our easily most popular episode.

01:01:03.060 I think it has twice the listens of everything else is the episode we did about Allie Beth Stuckey called Allie Beth Moore.

01:01:11.020 Oh, no.

01:01:11.860 Oh, no.

01:01:13.340 All right.

01:01:13.920 So you guys were you were not winsome in this episode, I imagine.

01:01:18.540 You know, one of the things I want to say about it is it's not like we were just trying to be ugly and attack this girl. 0.92

01:01:23.200 But we went through some of the things she said and just showed how wrong they are and really destructive to Christian families. 1.00

01:01:31.540 So that's a that's a really good one that I would encourage people to go to. 1.00

01:01:35.580 Another one that goes along with some of the things we've been talking about tonight, the made to order man episode.

01:01:41.780 That's one of the early ones we did.

01:01:43.560 That's a big original concept right there.

01:01:45.400 And it's a banger.

01:01:47.400 OK, I haven't listened to that one.

01:01:49.180 I'm going to have to listen to that one.

01:01:50.120 Yeah, it's just about the idea of these men who are kind of created by institutions to be just weak and followers. 0.74

01:02:04.700 We bid the Geldines to be fruitful, you know, castrate them. 1.00

01:02:09.120 Yeah, and so it's about that kind of man and how not to be one. 1.00

01:02:13.460 Okay.

01:02:14.400 Jeff, do you have any?

01:02:16.100 We've got kind of a vein that if you're into haunted cosmos or blurry creatures, there's some of that in us, too.

01:02:22.740 We have one called Return of the Old Gods, How Pride Becomes a New National Identity.

01:02:29.320 Yeah, cool.

01:02:30.880 Yeah, I think it turned out well.

01:02:32.560 Hey, Joel, can I – I know we've got to get out of here.

01:02:34.860 Can I say a backwards kind of admonition to people who listen to your podcast that I'm legit worried about and I need your – I need us to be aware of?

01:02:44.980 Okay. 0.70

01:02:45.260 We've spent a lot of time talking about basically institutional Christianity in our day and how terrible it is.

01:02:50.920 I'm afraid that a bunch of young men who see this stuff for what it is are going to check out on the local church over here.

01:02:59.260 And so we heard so much about Christless Christianity.

01:03:02.500 I'm afraid that like, I don't know where you're going to put the stake, 35, 30 and down.

01:03:08.420 Based guys who see things the way they are, they actually love Christ. 0.99

01:03:12.860 They're going to be churchless Christians. 1.00

01:03:15.260 And I think that's a recipe for disaster. 1.00

01:03:17.240 And so if anybody's listening to this, who's not going to come over to Backwoods, but some of this resonates with you, man, find a local church.

01:03:24.980 Amen.

01:03:25.440 Yeah.

01:03:25.820 Find one that preaches the gospel.

01:03:27.200 Find some that maybe even has some stuff that embarrasses you, like they're KJV only or something. 0.98

01:03:31.280 And love those people and work really hard to help them die in the faith. 0.99

01:03:35.420 um i think that's one of the blind spots that you know people who would listen to stuff we're

01:03:41.560 talking about might not have uh on their radar yet and you know when i talk to young men i'm like

01:03:48.420 no no no get to the local church just get away from the fake ones right right yeah amen that's

01:03:54.140 a good point amen and and getting to the local church getting away from the fake ones doesn't

01:03:58.740 mean um that you find the perfect one like you're going you're just you're gonna have to make some

01:04:04.240 concessions anywhere like i like i'm i'm the senior pastor of the church that i'm a part of

01:04:10.800 and uh and i i don't always like my preaching guys i'm like you know like well i guess i'm

01:04:18.920 stuck in this church you know it's the church that feeds my family you know i can't you know

01:04:23.240 i can't change my membership you know but the pastor here he kind of sucks sometimes and it's 0.88

01:04:27.080 me you know so i don't even like so you're not going to find a perfect church and and that's

01:04:31.320 the thing is with all these podcasts you're right jeff because you can you can it's like it's it's 0.97

01:04:36.360 effeminate actually it's gay it's fake and gay especially for a man uh because what it's the 0.97

01:04:40.720 equivalent of of making a list which is something that a 14 year old girl would do looking for a 0.99

01:04:45.320 boyfriend but you make a list and you got you know 45 uh things on that list that the boxes have to 0.95

01:04:51.660 be checked like uh are the women uh head covering you know like well about about a third of the

01:04:56.800 women and third to half of the women in my church head cover and the other half don't. And I'm just,

01:05:01.740 I leave them alone. And over time, we'll see what the Lord does. And maybe they're going to have a

01:05:05.960 different interpretation and I'm not going to divide the church over that. I'm a head covering

01:05:09.500 guy. That's my position. Most people know that. But even as a head covering, what I noticed is

01:05:14.400 I'll attract that kind of person who head coverings is the end all be all. And I'm like, well, you

01:05:19.440 misunderstood me. I'm a head covering guy. You like me because you've heard my podcast or you

01:05:24.880 you read this or something. Um, but no, no, no, no. Uh, I, I don't, uh, make this a divisive issue

01:05:31.400 the way you do. You, um, need to get a life. You need to get a life brother. Uh, and so anyways,

01:05:39.120 my point is if you can't see those things, you need a guy like you in their life to walk them

01:05:43.840 through learning that, like you're teaching them to dance. Right. So amen, Joel, that's a perfect

01:05:48.720 example. Cool. All right. Well, thank you guys again. Check it out. Uh, all the listeners check

01:05:54.040 out jeff and ben backwoods belief check out their most recent episode the uh life in the objective

01:05:59.740 room and then i like that uh built to order man or what is it say it again made to order man made

01:06:05.240 to order man that sounds great all right guys god bless you thanks joe thanks

The NXR Podcast - February 27, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - Why Blue-Collar Christians Threaten “Big Eva” with Ben & Jeff from Backwoods Belief

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